where the ordinary becomes extraordinary

quoting

I was going to write an entirely different post today, but I was finishing The Rainmaker while watching lunch (it's an old movie with Katherine Hepburn as a lonely ranch girl and Burt Lancaster as a con man). When I found myself writing down a quote from the movie, I just had to share it.

"There's no such thing as a plain woman. Every real woman is pretty. They're all pretty in a different way, but they're all pretty. .. Don't let [someone else] be your looking glass. [That's] in the wrong place. It's got to be inside you. Don't be afraid - look." - Burt Lancaster as Starbuck

I am reading The Art of Possibility by Rosamund and Benjamin Zander. It lists a set of practices that help you change the assumptions you live by in order to bring the art of possibility into your life. I am really enjoying it.

The practice I just got to, the one that inspired me to pause my reading and share, is about being a contribution. To quote:

"The steps to the practice are these:

1. Declare yourself to be a contribution.

2. Throw yourself into life as someone who makes a difference, accepting that you may not understand how or why."

Yes. I like this. It seems like a good way to shift myself away from worrying overmuch about success/failure or comparing myself to others and finding myself wanting (or finding them wanting, though I cringe to admit it), and towards a deeper level of care for others.

It is a hot day here in Oregon, and puppy and I are migrating from sun to shade to indoors under the ceiling fan and back again. With a glass of lemonade + water and a book, it is a good way to spend the afternoon.

I just started reading The Valleys of the Assassins by Freya Stark and came across a couple of lines in the preface that struck me. I thought I'd share them here, in case they are useful to others.

"I came to the conclusion that some more ascetic reason than mere enjoyment should be found if one wishes to travel in peace: to do things for fun smacks of levity, immorality almost, in our utilitarian world. And though personally I think the world is wrong, and I know in my heart of hearts that it is a most excellent reason to do things merely because one likes the doing of them, I would advise all those who wish to see unwrinkled brows in passport offices to start out ready labelled as entomologists, anthropologists, or whatever other -ology they think suitable and propitious."

It makes sense to me that doing things purely because you enjoy them is a most excellent reason - travel or otherwise - but the gremlins in my head do not agree at all. I wonder if I can think of an -ology label that would appease them.

There is a poem by Hafiz that has been waiting for just the right photo so that I can use it for a Friday post on my photo blog. I don't know when I'll find that photo, and my thoughts are too jumbled to make any sense of right now, so I thought I'd share the poem here. When I read it, my heart exploded. This - this - is how I want to live.

You may or may not agree with the idea that you are responsible for everything in your reality. Personally, I rather like the idea. (Though I will confess that the "everything" part of it is still awfully hard to wrap my head around.) The reason I like it is that unless I can take responsibility for something, it is very easy to feel like I have no control over it. Like I am powerless. A victim.

I may not know how I am responsible for something, or how to change it, but there is always something I have control over - my own thoughts. That, however, is easy to forget. If I take responsibility for something, it is easier to remember that I can always change my thoughts about that something.

I watched a video today in which Joe Vitale talks about Ho'oponopono. From what little I know of it, it seems to be a Hawaiian healing process in which you take responsibility for everything in your reality (and they do mean everything), and attempt to make things right by talking to God about it - offering up the following petition:

I'm sorry.

Please forgive me. (Meaning: I don't know what role I played in this event, but please forgive me for any role I had.)

Thank you. (Meaning: I know you are listening and will heal this.)

I love you.

While I was listening to the video, I had an emotional response. (In other words, I cried, which is what happens whenever I hear something that my body knows to be true.) I stopped the video and sat and meditated while silently saying the four phrases over and over. I cried harder. Huge gulping sobs. Lots of tears. Hard enough that the pup came over to see what on earth was wrong and sat there looking worried while offering me his paw to try to cheer me up.

After about a minute, the storm was over. I was light and refreshed. (Yes, crying can be very cathartic and a great emotional release.) Interestingly, I didn't even look like I had been crying (and if you've ever seen me after a tear-fest, you will know it's not a pretty picture).

"How do you react when you believe that what is isn't normal for you? Shame, sadness, despair. Who would you be without that thought? At ease with your condition and loving it, whatever it is, because you would realize that it is completely normal, for you. Even if 99 percent of other people look a different way, their normal isn't your normal: this is your normal ..

Give us permission, through you, to have a flaw, because flaws are the norm. When you hide your flaws, you teach us to hide ours. I love to say that we are just waiting for one teacher, just one, to give us permission to be who we are now. You appear as this, big or small, straight or bent. That's such a gift to give. The pain is in withholding it."

I read this passage in A Thousand Names for Joy by Bryon Katie the other day and it hit home. My scar is my normal. It has been for 20-plus years. And I spent all of that time trying to hide it. It was/is very tiring to argue with reality for that long. At the same time, I would never tell someone else to hide their "flaws". I would tell them to embrace them - that they're beautiful. And I would mean it. Seriously. How on earth does our own thinking get so crazy?!

"If you had a person in your life treating you the way you treat yourself, you would have gotten rid of them a long time ago ..."

I read this sentence in a book called There is Nothing Wrong With You by Cheri Huber. The statement is so true. Really, I don't think that we can be reminded of this enough.

I am learning to take her advice: "I can give you the simplest of all possible rules of thumb: Any time a voice is talking to you that is not talking with love and compassion, don't believe it! Even if it is talking about someone else, don't believe it."

Are you talking to yourself with love and compassion? If not, don't you think it's time to start?